If you journal already, well done! It’s a great way to be in touch with how you feel, physically and mentally, what you may want to achieve and general wellbeing.

If you don’t already journal, I would like to share some tips…

As well as the above, journalling can help you to solve issues in your life, help to give you direction, and it is great to be able to look back and see how you were before - a year ago for example. You can track your journey through life and see your progress and growth.

Firstly, where to journal. We want a safe, calm, private space for journalling if possible. It could be your bedroom, a study or in a cafe if you can’t find the space at home.

Make sure you have time to journal. If all you can do is a few minutes, then that’s better than nothing at all, but if you can carve out half and hour or an hour, all the better.

Timing… You may be able to get up early in the morning to journal while you are fresh from sleep, and this is the best time as you haven’t had the day to get on top of you. But, you can journal before you go to bed and get everything down that has bothered you in the day. Or maybe you need to do it at another time, when the children are at school, or after work etc. Try to have a routine if you can, but if you can’t then something is better than nothing at all.

If possible, use a notebook or journal, as it has more power written by hand. Find a book to suit you. Some people buy a notebook especially for their journalling and this is what I would recommend. but, if you really prefer, you can do it on your laptop, tablet or phone.

So, how to start? 

You can use a journal that has the prompts you like in it. These are available easily. 

You can just write whatever comes into your head - a stream of consciousness as it were. Whatever is on your mind, just let the thoughts come and write them down.

You can use a prompt, such as ‘How am I today, in this moment’. This is a nice one as you can do this every day and night as a ‘check in’ with yourself and you will be able to see if there are any patterns in your moods based on what goes on in your life.

Other prompts could be 

‘What are my goals?’

‘What am I grateful for?’

‘How was my day?’

‘What made me happy?’

‘What did I achieve today?’

’What am I looking forward to tomorrow?’

‘What is today’s affirmation?’

’What is my intention or commitment to myself for the day?’

‘How was my energy today?’

‘What did I do well today?’

It depends if it is a day or night journal. Or you could do both!

See where it takes you.

If, for any reason, your emotions get triggered during journalling, take some time out, and time for yourself. Work out what triggered you and what you can do about it. Do you need to work on that thing? Do you need to seek help with it? Do you need counselling?

Happy journalling!